What is pictorial space?

Para empezar, muestro el espacio pictórico en los diagramas dibujados por Casper. Más tarde lo
mostraré en pinturas. No se deje engañar por la simplicidad de estos diagramas: el espacio
pictórico es extraordinariamente difícil de lograr.
Diagramas El plano general del cuadro suele ser rectangular. El ancho y la altura deben ser
proporcionales. En las figuras 1 y 2, las secciones ayb también deben ser proporcionales.

En la figura 1 las proporciones no funcionan: a es demasiado corta.

En la figura 2 las proporciones A a B, A a C, y B a C están en proporción entre sí ya la dimensión

vertical global: el cuadro es armonioso y unificado.
En la figura 3 el borde derecho del plano pequeño crea una división vertical como la de la figura 2,
con proporciones armoniosas similares. Los bordes izquierdo y superior del plano pequeño crean
nuevas divisiones proporcionales en el rectángulo general. El plano pequeño se mueve hacia arriba
o hacia abajo, lejos o hacia el borde inferior del rectángulo general. La dirección de su fuerza será
decidida por otros planos a medida que se añadan.

En la figura 4 el segundo plano se opone a la primera.

Si el plano 2 se eleva hacia arriba y hacia la derecha, el plano 1 se desplaza hacia abajo y hacia la
izquierda. Si el plano 2 se desplaza hacia abajo, el plano 1 se eleva. El rectángulo se ha dividido de
nuevo por los bordes izquierdo y inferior del plano 2 para crear nuevas secciones proporcionales.
Aparece el espacio pictórico: los planos 1 y 2 están situados a diferentes profundidades y tiran
hacia adelante o hacia atrás unos contra otros.
Pero sus posiciones no han sido resueltas: o bien podrían estar al frente.
El plano 5 se encuentra en la parte trasera.

En la figura 5, el plano 3 crea cuatro divisiones más proporcionales del rectángulo, todas ellas
relacionadas con todas las demás divisiones.
El plano 1 empuja hacia delante, hacia abajo y hacia la izquierda, el plano 3 empuja hacia la
derecha y el plano 2 retrocede, arriba y hacia la derecha. La superposición resuelve las posiciones
de los planos 1 y 2 y el espacio entre ellos es vívido.

Se ha creado un fuerte movimiento diagonal, retrocediendo en profundidad desde la parte inferior

izquierda hasta la parte superior derecha. Esa diagonal requiere un movimiento opuesto para
contenerla. Se pide el plano 4 (figura 6). El nuevo plano se opone al plano 1 tirando hacia atrás,
hacia arriba y hacia la izquierda. El movimiento global hacia atrás desde c hasta b está contenido
por el movimiento hacia adelante desde a hasta e. Ahora la composición está completa. Es
dinámica porque los dos movimientos globales se contienen pero no son simétricos. Un
contramovimiento simétrico de a a d habría producido una composición decorativa estática.

También hay movimientos de plano a plano.

El movimiento hacia la profundidad desde los planos 1 a 2 vuelve en movimientos de profundidad
desde los planos 5 a 4 y de los planos 4 a 1. Estos producen un movimiento circular total que es
más evidente en la figura 11. Las divisiones en la dimensión de profundidad también deben ser
proporcionado. En la figura 7 las proporciones en profundidad son satisfactorias. En la figura 8 las
proporciones no funcionan: no se relacionan rítmicamente entre sí.
Figure 9 shows the pictorial space which has been created. Here you can
more easily see the relative positions of the planes, and the proportional divisions
in depth.
Figure 10 shows what happens when the divisions are not proportionate
and when a movement goes into depth without being contained by an opposing
movement.
The forms shrink away from the edges of the rectangle. The movement
creates a hole which violates the flat surface. There are spatial effects but there is
no balance and no unity.
In the final composition(fig. 11) each plane has a distinct, tangible location
in depth. There is a circular movement from the foreground, back to upper right,
and forward and down again from the upper left. The forms expand towards the
edges of the overall rectangle; the forces which thrust the planes apart make the
picture big and solid. The composition creates space but maintains the flatness of
the picture plane. It feels whole and alive.

Explanation
Un área de color forma un plano, cada borde del cual divide la altura o anchura del rectángulo
total en un par de secciones (figs. 1-2). (2) Si la composición es de plástico, las longitudes de cada
par de secciones son proporcionales entre sí, a la altura y anchura del rectángulo total, y en
proporción a todas las demás secciones creadas por todos los demás planos (figs. 3-4 ). Los planos
también están situados a diferentes profundidades, creando así pares de secciones en esa
dimensión que también son proporcionales (figs. 7-8). Todas estas proporciones integran los
planos y unifican el cuadro. Lo mismo es cierto en la escultura, excepto que los planos son
reemplazados por masas y el rectángulo plano es reemplazado por una forma tridimensional
simple, como un cubo o un ovoide. La composición es dinámica porque un par de movimientos
diagonales (fuerzas) se contienen entre sí pero no son simétricos (figs. 5-6): dentro de esa
estructura básica hay empujes y contrapuntos más pequeños. Debido a su ubicación, cada plano
empuja o tira contra la superficie plana del lienzo (figura 4). La tracción de un plano está contenida
por la tracción opuesta del otro de tal manera que, mientras que los dos planos están situados a
diferentes profundidades, ambos se mantienen en relación con la superficie: no se viola la
integridad de la superficie También figuras 5-6). Hans Hofmann dijo: El producto del movimiento y
contramovimiento es la tensión. Cuando se expresa la tensión (fuerza de trabajo), da a la obra de
arte el efecto vivo de fuerzas coordinadas, aunque opuestas | 26 |. También hay un movimiento
circular hacia atrás en profundidad sobre varios planos y luego hacia delante de nuevo sobre
varios planos (figura 11). Este movimiento circular, al igual que el equilibrio de fuerzas, mantiene
los planos en relación con la superficie plana y, por tanto, mantiene la pintura unificada. Entre los
planos está el espacio pictórico que es diferente de la ilusión del espacio sugerida por la
perspectiva. La figura 10 muestra que la perspectiva hace que el rectángulo parezca una ventana
en un mundo tridimensional (viola la superficie plana). Hofmann dijo: La pintura posee leyes
fundamentales. Estas leyes son dictadas por percepciones fundamentales. Una de estas
percepciones es: la esencia del cuadro es el plano del cuadro. La esencia del plano del cuadro es su
bidimensionalidad ... Y esto conduce a la segunda ley: el cuadro debe lograr un efecto
tridimensional, distinto de la ilusión, mediante el proceso creativo. Estas dos leyes se aplican tanto
al color como a la forma | 27 |. El efecto de un color depende de su tono (es rojo o amarillo o
verde?); Su calor (rojo-naranja es el tono más cálido, azul-verde el más frío); Su saturación
(¿cuánto se diluye con blanco, gris o negro?); Su brillo (¿cuán intensamente refleja la luz?); Y su
extensión (¿cuánta superficie cubre?). El color crea tensiones entre los planos que también deben
ser equilibrados (placa 15). Si los colores de una pintura plástica se reducen a tonos de gris
(intente ver la reproducción en blanco y negro en la placa 1), la pintura puede ser todavía de
plástico. Contraste de brillo y extensión, junto con la forma, puede ser suficiente. La imagen final
respira: el aire circula a través del espacio que rodea las formas (figura 11).

Las formas parecen expandirse. Parecen masivos y permanentes. Cada estructura está relacionada
(por ubicación, tono, contraste, proporción, repetición o dirección de movimiento) a cada otra
estructura. Nada está incluido a menos que sea requerido. El cuadro es una unidad orgánica.
Roger Fry (3) dijo de los paisajes de Cézanne: Su profundo sentido de un ritmo plástico continuo
penetra en toda una composición. Por algún poder misterioso pudo dar a las montañas, a las
casas, a los árboles, a toda su sólida integridad, articularlos en un espacio claramente sentido y sin
embargo mantener un ritmo de movimiento plástico casi ininterrumpido desde un extremo del
lienzo hasta el otro Otros | 28 |.
Un paisaje de Cézanne y su motivo
Al comparar el paisaje de Cézanne La Sainte Victoire de Beaurecueil, (Placa 2) con una fotografía
de su motivo puede verlo construyendo el espacio pictórico. Cézanne seleccionó elementos del
motivo para servir de planos en su pintura. La ladera en el primer plano derecho y la ladera alta en
el fondo izquierdo tienen laderas paralelas: forman un par principal de planos en la pintura. La
ladera baja hacia abajo, hacia adelante y derecha contra la ladera de la montaña, que sube,
retrocede y se va; Entre ellos crean el espacio pictórico. El lado izquierdo de la carretera y la colina
en el fondo derecho también tienen bordes paralelos y también forman un par de planos que
crean espacio. El camino tira a la izquierda, hacia abajo y hacia adelante, la colina a la derecha,
hacia arriba y hacia atrás. También hay tensión entre el triángulo oscuro en el primer plano
izquierdo y el triángulo oscuro en la alta montaña izquierda. Hay tensiones plásticas adicionales
entre los planos más pequeños de cada casa y de los dos árboles oscuros.
Plate 2-1 Cézanne, French. The Sainte Victoire from Beaureceuil. Cézanne distorted the motif to
make his painted planes relate to the overall plane of the flat canvas. He pushed the foreground
down and back (into relationship with the overall plane) by contracting it, blurring it
and fading it. He brought the mountain forward (towards the overall plane) by enlarging it and
sharpening its contour. He brought the sky forward by means of its dense texture; the sky is as
dense as the road. He also enlarged and sharpened the houses and the dark tree in the middle
distance to bring them forward; each house would have to be as big as a village to appear as large
as it does in his painting. In the painting each
plane functions as part of a plastic unity. In the photograph, space is an illusion
due to perspective.
Cézanne's painting is not finished in the conventional sense but it is
nevertheless a complete plastic composition. I will explain later, if a painting is to
be plastic, then it must be plastic at each intermediate stage in its development.

Plate 2-2 Erle Loran, American. Photograph of

Cézanne's motif. 1927.
The properties of plastic paintings
Cézanne studied plasticity by studying the masters in the Louvre. You can
do the same. Here I use reproductions to demonstrate aspects of pictorial space. I
also quote what painters have said of each aspect. Proportionality
In Modigliani's portrait (plate 14) the width of the canvas is divided by the
front of the woman's blouse and by the edge of the plane behind her head. The
whole composition seems to be based upon these two proportionalities.
Of Cézanne's paintings Roger Fry said: One divines, in fact, that the forms are held together by
some strict
harmonic principle almost like that of the canon in Greek architecture,
and that it is this that gives its extraordinary repose and equilibrium to
the whole design |29|. Boundaries
In the portrait by the Master of Moulins (plate 11) boundaries are vividly
felt. Because it creates proportionate sections, the vertical edges of the window
frame are related to the boundaries formed by the sides of the rectangle. Because
it creates proportionate divisions in depth, the window frame is also related to
the painting's flat surface which forms another boundary. There are also
boundaries between planes, established by line or by color difference. The
boundaries between hills in the background are sharp, those in the foreground
are blurred; each is consciously adjusted by the artist.
Embodiment
A plastic painting is a thing in itself, like a piece of jewelry, a physical
reality of flat, paint-covered canvas in which form and proportion are incarnated. In Matisse's still
life (plate 12) the lamp, the vases, and the landscape beyond
serve only as suggestions for an arrangement of form and color on canvas. By
contrast, the painting by Canaletto (plate 5) creates the illusion of a window.
Hofmann said:
The act of creation agitates the picture plane but, if the two-
dimensionality is lost, the picture reveals holes and is not pictorial but a
naturalistic imitation of nature |30|.
Dionysus and Apollo
An area of color thrusts forwards or backwards, creating tensions with
other colors. These forces may be wild or Dionysian and would dismember the
composition unless they were controlled. Thus each area of color, like each form,
must be integrated by Apollonian balance and feeling (feeling is a rational
function which evaluates different pictorial effects).
In the portrait by El Greco (plate 9) the red of the Cardinal's cloak creates
a strong effect but is contained within the overall picture plane. The intense
yellow and red rectangles in Hans Hofmann's painting (plate 15) also create
strong effects but are contained.
Describing the portrait Mme. Cézanne Fry said:
It expresses, too, that characteristic feeling of Cézanne's ... the
monumental repose, the immense duration of the objects represented, a
feeling which is conveyed to us by the passionate conviction of each
affirmation. That passion, no doubt, was always present, but whereas in
the earlier works it was hasty and overbearing, its force [here] is all the
greater for being thus held in and constrained |31|. Unity
In the portrait by Velásquez (plate 4) I sense that each area of the canvas is
related to the whole. This is not true of the portrait next to it, by Degas. In the
portrait by Matisse (plate 11) the whole drawing is unified around the young
woman's face.
Forces are balanced and integrated into an overall unity. A structure (a
complex of several planes, for example, the woman's head) is discriminated from
its surroundings but is related, by tone, value, contrast, proportion, repetition, or
direction of movement to all other structures. Nothing is included unless it is
called for by the rest of the painting. The painting functions as an organic whole.
It moves and breathes. The sculptor Hildebrand wrote in 1893:
...we can understand the possibility of a coherence and unity in a picture
quite distinct from the coherence and unity of Nature ... In a good
landscape we are conscious of a certain visual coherence between its
parts, making it appear as though it could not be otherwise than it is. All
the details of the picture are mutually conditioned as stimuli so as to
produce in our minds a unified whole. Although the layman, with his
interest in the subject, seeks out and pays most attention to the things
which are represented in the picture, he nevertheless succumbs
unconsciously to the effect which makes the whole spatially alive and
unified. This internal consistency of the work of art he feels without being
able to explain it |32|.
Fry said of the portrait La Femme a la Cafetiere:
This exemplifies pointedly a constant characteristic of Cézanne's, his
feeling that the plastic sequence must be felt throughout the whole
surface of the canvas ... Though there may be nodal points in the
sequence, every part, however apparently insignificant, had to contribute
its precise and irreplaceable quotient to the whole. Every instrument in
the orchestra must sound, however faintly. Even in the water colors where only the key phrases
are written down they are felt as setting up
rhythms in every part of the surface. But this perfect continuity of plastic
sequences did not of course imply any want of organization. This
continuity only contributes to the perfectly lucid organization and the
clear articulation of volumes. Their exact relief or recession has to be
given to each plane. Nothing could be more explicit, more legible than
the plasticity of this design where everything keeps its exact position, and
where the volumes have the exact space in which to evolve |33|. Vigor
Plastic paintings are never insipid. In Veronese's Mars and Venus (plate 7)
planes push vigorously against each other and are at the same time held in
balance. Soulages said of the great Renaissance paintings that they were like
machines he would fear to put his finger into lest it be hurt by the gears |34|.
When I come suddenly upon such a painting in a museum I feel a shock of
surprise like the shock of meeting a deer in the woods. Each stands poised and
breathing in its own universe. A plastic painting evolves as a living organism
evolves, from its initial simple form through a series of intermediate forms to its
final complex form (see Plate 2 and Creating a plastic painting). At each stage the
painting is alive because it is unified and vigorous. The vigor of the initial
structure is not lost but is translated into new forms.
The play of movement
Opposing movements play against each other throughout the canvas.
Nothing is static. The surface ripples like a stream running over a bed of stones.
The still lives by Cézanne and Matisse (plate 12) each show this live rippling
surface. Fry described Cézanne's landscape Provencal Mas: It shows, too, that vigorous logic in the
sequence of planes, which evolve
in an unbroken succession throughout every part of the picture,
enforcing irresistibly upon the spectator's imagination their exact
recession at each point and enabling us to grasp the significance of all the
interplay of their movements |35|.
Expansion and monumentality
In Braque's still life (plate 6) the planes seem to expand towards the edges
of the canvas. The painting seems massive or monumental even as a postcard.
Monumentality is obvious in Modigliani's portrait (plate 14) and in the paleolithic
La Dame de Sireuil (plate 16). By contrast, when a painting is not plastic the
forms tend to contract, pulling away from the edges of the rectangle. Caravaggio's
The Lute Player (plate 9) illustrates this.
According to Hofmann:
Monumentality is an affair of relativity. The truly monumental can only
come about by means of the most exact and refined relation between the
parts |36|.
Of Cézanne's Card Players Fry said:
It is hard to think of any design since those of the great Italian Primitives
- one or two of Rembrandt's later pieces might perhaps be cited - which
gives us so extraordinary a sense of monumental gravity and resistance -
of something that has found its center and can never be moved ... The
feeling of life is no less intense than that of eternal stillness and repose ...
These figures have indeed the gravity, the reserve and the weighty
solemnity of some monument of antiquity ... gestures and events take on
a Homeric ease and amplitude |37|. Pictorial Space
In a self portrait by Rembrandt (plate 8) pictorial space is apparent around
the head and shoulders. In the portrait by the Master of Moulins (plate 11) there
is a pronounced sense of air circulating around the form.
When a painting is not plastic the forms are cramped and fused to each
other. There is no pictorial space and the picture does not breathe. I see such
fusion in the center of Juan Gris' still life (plate 6). Braque's still life is shown for
contrast on the same page. There I see air circulating between the planes.
Fry said of a still-life by Cézanne:
One suspects a strange complicity between these objects, as though they
insinuated mysterious meanings by the way they are extended on the
plane of the table and occupy the imagined picture space. Each form
seems to have a surprising amplitude, to permit our apprehending it with
an ease that surprises us, and yet they admit a free circulation in the
surrounding space |38|.
Braque said:
What particularly attracted me - and this was the main bearing of
Cubism - was the materialization of this new space that I felt to be in the
offing ... for this was the first concern of Cubism, the investigation of
space |39|.
Creating pictorial space
We know the technique of painters such as Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso,
Braque, Hofmann, and Casper. They all worked slowly, making repeated changes.
Cézanne did not overlay as much as the others but he built up his pictures very
slowly with tiny additions. Robert Casper's technique illustrates this. He begins with two or three
patches of color, shifting and altering them until they form a viable plastic
composition. At first his painting is relatively loose and simple but it must be
plastic; only then can he add to it. Speaking of this early stage Picasso said:
If you take a picture by Cézanne (and this is even more clearly visible in
the watercolors), the moment he begins to place a stroke of paint on it,
the painting is already there |40|.
A painter must be sensitive to his own instincts as to what is needed next.
At the same time he analyzes each addition in terms of proportions and the
balancing of forces and movements. Casper does not begin with a plan and
impose it on the canvas. (If a painting follows a plan it becomes ossified and
cannot go beyond the initial idea.) Nor does he represent what he sees.
Representation only gives suggestions. He adds a new plane only if the whole
canvas seems to call for it. He uses trial-and-error to reject possibilities which are
not immediately called for. Cézanne said of his own process:
There mustn't be a single link too loose, not a crevice through which may
escape the emotion, the light, the truth. I advance, you understand, all of
my canvas at one time - together. I bring together in the same spirit, the
same faith, all that is scattered ... I take from left, from right, here, there,
everywhere, tones, colors, shades. I fix them, I bring them together. They
make lines. They become objects, rocks, trees, without my thinking about
it. They take on volume. They acquire value |41|.
When Casper adds a new element it calls for changes elsewhere on the
canvas. He reworks continuously. His painting may repeatedly dissolve and
transform itself in unexpected ways. But at each stage it must function as a whole
organism. (4) Only then can he add to it. If a painting goes awry and loses its unity (becomes less
plastic), he has to take it back to the point where it was still
unified before he can go on. The work is difficult. Each painting presents unique
problems: there is no formula for success.
Casper allows the painting to gestate. It cannot be rushed. Again and again
he sets the painting aside until he sees it afresh and can feel what it calls for next.
When he stops, it is not because the picture is “finished” but because he cannot,
just then, make it stronger. Picasso said:
For me each painting is a study. I say to myself, I am going one day to
finish it, make a finished thing out of it. But as soon as I start to finish it,
it becomes another painting and I am going to redo it. Well, it is always
something else in the end. If I retouch, I make a new painting |42|.
In the end the painting may depict real objects but the realism is
deceptive. Representation has only suggested planes and colors. Each element is
present only because it adds to the plastic unity. In terms of realism the painting
seems distorted (Cézanne was ridiculed for his “bad drawing”). In fact it is true to
its internal plastic world. Of Cézanne's landscape Provencal Mas Fry said:
The actual objects presented to the artist's vision are first deprived of all
those specific characters by which we ordinarily apprehend their concrete
existence: they are reduced to pure elements of space and volume. In this
abstract world these elements are perfectly coordinated and organized by
the artist's sensual intelligence, they attain logical consistency |43|.
Referring to one of Cézanne's Bathers Fry said:
These forms are situated in the picture-space with that impressive
definiteness, that imperturbable repose of which Cézanne had discovered
the secret. One suspects, however, that an endless search was needed to
discover exactly the significant position of each volume in the space, a
research in which the figures have become ungainly and improbable |44|. Instinct and sensitivity
to the rectangle
A painting by a six-year-old girl is shown in plate 3. The vertical stem and
the horizontal band of blue
each divide the rectangle into
proportionate sections. These
major divisions create a
framework upon which there
are beautiful contrasts of color
and form. The picture
occupies the whole rectangle
and is both vigorous and
unified.
Because it is
spontaneous and has not been
deliberately reworked this
painting is not plastic, but it is
instinctively sensitive to the
overall rectangle. A naive artist may also show this childlike sensitivity. As an
artist matures and develops technical skills, he or she may lose sensitivity to the
rectangle. Then, in order to paint plastically, he or she must rediscover that

sensitivity. Plate 3 Emma

McDowell, A Child's Painting In psychological terms, the young girl's composition suggests that the
instinctual layer of her personality has not been repressed by consciousness. The
bold contrasts of color and form suggest the same.
How can you learn to create pictorial space?
What follows is not the only way to approach pictorial space but it may be
the easiest way. Because pictorial space is so difficult, easiest is probably best.
Work small and simple. This throws the problem into relief and will help
you to focus. Otherwise you will be seduced by other visual effects. A canvas eight
inches by six is big enough. To have more control over forces due to color, use
only a few colors and dilute them greatly with gray. To see the proportionate
relationships more easily, paint only rectangles. This will also protect you from
seduction by shape, line, or detail. Do not be discouraged by these restrictions.
They will not make your painting dull. If they empower you to play with pictorial
space then such play will offer infinite possibilities. Hofmann's Memoria in
Aeternum (plate 15) shows what can be achieved with several rectangles. Your
purpose is to become more sensitive to pictorial space.
Work in acrylics and make repeated changes: wipe off paint before it dries
or dry it with a hairdryer and paint over it. Paint a single rectangle, changing it
until all the proportions work so that it seems to belong on the canvas. Then try
to add a second rectangle: it could be the same color. Since all proportions must
work you will be forced to change the first rectangle. After an hour or two your eye will tire and
you will become insensitive to
the plastic effect. You may get lost in decorative effects. Set the canvas aside and
come back to it later. Be prepared to struggle for hours. In order to satisfy new
proportional demands you must repeatedly sacrifice already hard-won
proportions. Your aim is to control the spatial tension between the two rectangles
so that both seem integrated with the flat canvas and with each other. If you
succeed the canvas will be alive: the flat surface will be activated by the spatial
effect.
Then try to add a third rectangle. Again you must remain fluid, repeatedly
sacrificing some of what you have already achieved. The third rectangle must add
further to the spatial effect. Any addition which weakens the plasticity is a
mistake and must be removed: there can be no detours through disproportionate
or spatially confused intermediate forms. This criterion may enable you to find a
way forward. Without it you will get lost in a tangle of distractions.
If you succeed in adding a third rectangle then you have a plastic
composition. Start again with a new, equally small canvas and try to achieve a
second composition. If you wrestle with it long enough it too may become its own
original universe, different from the first. To get to this point is an unusual
accomplishment. Then you can try to add another rectangle, remembering always
that nothing can be added unless it increases the plastic strength of the
composition. Why is pictorial space important in art?
Painting combines representation, concept, symbolic meaning, color,
texture, and line. Each adds pleasure and meaning. The organization of space is
only one component and because I focus on it alone, I do not mean to deny the
importance of all the other components.
Consider two contradictory views of painting. The first is that a painting is
like a window onto a piece of the outside world, onto a scene, or a person, or a
story, or a symbol, or a concept. In this view the interest lies in that which is
depicted while the painting itself serves only as a frame and an invisible surface,
both of which can be ignored as a clear window is ignored. The structure of the
world depicted, therefore, need not be consistent with the flat rectangle of the
canvas.
The second view is that the painting itself is the object of interest. In that
case a criterion of quality is that it be structurally self-consistent. Since the
overall form is limited by the flat surface and the four sides of the rectangle, it
follows that everything introduced into the painting must be related to these
limits. This leads to pictorial space. When two marks are placed on the canvas
there is always a spatial effect between them. If the spatial effect is contained
within the limits of the flat rectangle then the painting is already plastic.
If a painting is to be a fully unified work of art then the window model of
painting is untenable. If a painting is not related to its own overall form then it
functions like a fragment of prose describing a scene, rather than a whole poem |45| inspired by a
scene. The prose description may be vivid and interesting but it
lacks a unified structure.
There are other kinds of unity besides spatial unity. The surface can be
unified, color can be unified, and the composition (arrangement of shapes and
lines) can be unified. Even if the painting is unified in all these ways, however,
the spatial problem remains; unless it is resolved the painting will be structurally
fragmented.
Why is a unified structure important? Who is to say that unity should be a
criterion of quality? Only when a painting's structure is unified does it become a
living universe, complete unto itself. All the internal components of an animal, its
heart and lungs and liver for example, have to be consistent with its overall limits
of size and metabolic rate. Every animal is unique and some are more vigorous
than others but each must be internally balanced. Otherwise it dies and
disintegrates. A painting that functions as a window is like a picture of an animal,
while a painting that is structurally unified is like the live animal itself.
Plotonius wrote in the second century A.D.:
It is by the One that all beings are beings ... for what could exist were it
not one? If not a one, a thing is not. No army, no choir, no flock exists
except it can be one ... It is the same with plant and animal bodies; each
of them is a unit ... Health is contingent upon the body's being
coordinated in unity; beauty, upon the mastery of the parts by the One;
the soul's virtue, upon unification into one sole coherence |46|.
The window concept of painting became prevalent during the Renaissance
when painters strove for realism using the new sciences of perspective and
anatomy. Many art historians argue that pre-Renaissance painting is flat because pre-Renaissance
artists did not understand perspective; perspective led to
“progress” in painting. This view has created much confusion about the problem
of space. In fact, pre-Renaissance painting in Europe and also in many non-
European traditions was based upon structural unity and pictorial space.
Renaissance devices such as anatomy, perspective, and the use of light and
shadow all tended to obscure and weaken pictorial space. Cézanne, and after him
Picasso and Braque, sought to restore its primacy (see Braque).
What about subject matter? Is it of no value? Its value is that it adds
interest to the painting. But a scene, a person, a symbol, a story, or a concept can
be illustrated by a commercial artist who would not pretend that the illustration
was a work of art. What distinguishes a great work of art from an illustration?
Part of the answer, in my opinion, is that a great work of art is a living universe,
complete unto itself.
Does this mean that painting is only a matter of pictorial space? What
about the artist's personality or temperament? Inevitably the artist's personality
is expressed in his or her art; if the artist is passionate, then the painting will be
passionate. Unless the artist has an artistic temperament the painting will seem
sterile even if it is well structured. A playwright must have an artistic vision: the
play must express something vital in his or her own temperament. But to be a
work of art the play must also have structure. In fact the problem of pictorial
space provides a rich medium within which the artist's temperament is
expressed. It adds greatly to the artist's other resources for self expression, such
as color, drawing, texture, composition, and subject matter.

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